Unofficial news and tips about Google

April 29, 2007

Share Big Files Fast

You'd think that all these communications tools that ask you to move your files online make it easy to move big files too. I've recently had to send an archive that had around 100 MB to a group of people. If I wanted to send the file to a single person, an instant messenger like Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger would've been a good option. I initially thought that BitTorrent is a good idea, but that works well for a big group that connects at the same time (though Pando is a nice client based on BitTorrent).

So file hosting had to work. Unfortunately there are many options and most of them are bad: they require to register, they have traffic limitations or they're slow. Here are some of the best file hosting solutions I've found:

mihd.net - they promise to let you upload files up to 2 GB (they lowered the limit to 200 MB temporarily), the site has a lot of text ads, but the download speed is very good (at least 100 KB/s) and there aren't hourly download limitations. The files are deleted depending on their file size: for 100 MB, they're deleted 45 days after the last download.

DivShare lets you upload files smaller than 200 MB, but they're never deleted. You also get some basic stats and previews for images, MP3s and videos.

MediaFire has a very nice interface and lets you upload files up to 100 MB without any limitation. The download speed is almost as good as for mihd.net and they even scan your files for viruses.

I ended up using mihd, although the other two sites are also very good. If you know something better that doesn't require registration, software and has very few or no limitations, I'm all ears.

39 comments:

cool review didnt hear of divshare before looks ok, mihd speeds are good for a free service and they answer emails quickly when i lost my delete link, mediafire is slow to europe but the rounded corners do the job

I use MediaFire primarily. I usually forget the download a few days later and if I want to find it back, it's not easy. But in MediaFire, I just log in and my files are there. One bad thing about MediaFire is I can't use it with DownThemAll and as such.

My favorite is senduit.com -- the UI is so phenomenally simple, it makes all the other file sharing services look bloated.

Another good option is box.net -- box.net acts more like an online hard drive, in which you can share files by making them public. This notion of an online hard drive has tons of potential (remember all those rumors about GDrive?).

Stumbled across an interesting thing in Gmail: I sent an email from work to my gmail account and attached a couple of fairly large files. When I read gmail from home and downloaded the attachemnts, it downloaded them as a zip file.

Actually, Pando keeps around a copy of your file on our servers (disclosure: I work there) for a time, so users don't all have to be connected at the same time for the transfer to succeed. Unlike YouSendIt and company, if users happen to be on at the same, they join in and share the pieces they have downloaded, which speeds up and makes more efficient the file delivery.

Divshare is terrible. Wouldn't entrust anything important too it. For the past few days it has been mostly unreachable and when it is there, it crawls along. You can't even delete a file from your user interface.

BigEasyShare.com is a really good one. There are a few ads but nothing obnoxious or annoying. It doesn't require any registration and you can upload files up to 100MB and send it to 5 email recipients. It has a simple design and is simple to use.

I am currently developing a web site that allows you to securely share and send files that are too big to e-mail. There are no file or size limits, no software to download and install, and it is 100% free. It also works on all platforms, including Windows, Mac and Linux.

The site is fileai.com, and we are currently in open beta. If you happen to stop by and give it a try, we'd appreciate any feedback.

To move large files, you can just use the GMS, which is an online media system. There you can also convert your files from flv to avi or mpeg. Make yourself at www.gozzi.dk or write to Giovanni@Gozzi.dk system, visit the www.gozzi.dk / people newspaper

Good article; however, there is an even better way to, send large files fast and for little to no cost, between computers and mobile devices! No membership required. I simply pay for the file size I'm sending with no further obligations.

I know alternative file share.It's http://creafile.com.Upload file 2Gb. File save on the storage30 day after lasy download.Users don't wait hours between download.Good speed for download if you are not registerand don't buy VIP account.I think it is very good.